Tag: University cuts

4 May 2016 | The government has pushed consideration of proposed university reforms, including a 20% cut in funding, out beyond the election, until 1 January 2018. While it has ruled out full fee deregulation, it has released an options paper, to guide a consultation process, canvassing a range of alternative fee measures which would still see substantial fee rises. The 2016 Budget also sees an efficiency dividend of $1.2 billion on legislated dropped but the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program has been cut by $152 million to $553 million over four years. The Office of Learning and Teaching has been abolished, with the resulting $18 million in savings going to TEQSA and the Quality Indicators in Learning and Teaching website. The consultation paper presages changes to FEE-HELP, including dropping the repayment threshold from around $54,000 to something in the range of $40, 000 to $45,000. Over $2.5 billion dollars in unlegislated funding cuts remain on the books….[ MORE]….

4 May 2016 | The federal government has proposed a set of tougher measures to fix the VET FEE-HELP blow-out in a discussion paper released on 29 April. The minister for vocational education and skills senator Scott Ryan said the paper will pave the way for a full redesign of the scheme. The discussion paper catalogues the scale of malpractice by some providers, such as the targeting of low socio-economic status and vulnerable people with inducements to enroll and misleading potential students about their repayment commitments. It proposes a series of measures to improve the integrity of the system including minimum eligibility requirements for VET FEE-HELP, reductions in the lifetime student loan limit, a narrower range of eligible courses, a VET FEE-HELP ombudsman, and payments tied to compliance and student progression….[ READ MORE ]….

4 May 2016 | With international education worth nearly $20 billion to the Australian economy in 2015, the government has provided $12 million in the Budget to fund the National Strategy for International Education 2025 released on 30 April. In three parts, the strategy identifies international educationas one of five “super growth sectors” that will help complete Australia’s transition from a resource-based economy to a modern services and knowledge economy. The strategy aims to help grow the sector by 50% to 720,000 international students by 2025. A separate economic study indicates that international education supports over 130,000 jobs across Australian and delivers substantial indirect benefits to other industries such as tourism and retail….[ READ MORE]….

28 April 2016 | Ivan Brown, who ran one of Australia’s fastest-growing vocational colleges, Phoenix Institute, is being investigated for allegedly forging documents to reap more than $100 million in taxpayer funds. Federal Police search warrants say they have “reasonable grounds for suspecting” Brown, the made false documents or caused them to be made “with the intention to influence the Commonwealth to accept on-line students as genuinely enrolled and participating in training”. Meanwhile a report by the failed company’s administrator claims that the education department owes ACN $253 million for people signed up to courses of study. It also shows that ACN paid its brokers between 15 and 30 % of the value of its courses to the salesmen who recruited students – up to $12,000 per sign up.…[ READ MORE ]…

4 May 2016

As we draw nearer the election, the findings of a recent ANU opinion poll ought to resonate with the politicians, as ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt observes – particularly those given to characterising the “politics of equity” as the “politics of envy” (that being our observation, not Schmidt’s). It is unlikey to though: with the political class, only two polls count – Newspoll and the actual poll on 2 July.

……..

The ANU School of Politics & International Relations regularly conducts national telephone opinion polls on issues of political and social significance. The latest, the 21st in the series, was on the issue of tax and equity. Should we be worried about governments holding debt? Which areas of spending should have priority, and which can be cut? Should we pay more tax, or less? Is our tax system generally fair?

More Australians favour greater spending on social services than favour reducing taxes. If reducing government debt is the aim, cutting welfare payments is among the least popular options, according to this poll. Australians want more spending directed to health, domestic violence prevention, education, and disability and aged care. They want international companies operating in Australia to pay more tax here, but overall believe our tax system is moderately fair.

On education, around 80% thought the government should spend more money on education, just 2.2% of Australians polled nominated education as “the most important problem” facing Australia today. It ranked thirteen, way behind the economy and jobs (27.2%), just ahead of law and order (1.8) and somewhat ahead of taxation (1.2%) and the budget (1%), although at the levels of granularity involved, these rankings may not be entirely reliable.

Higher education in policy paralysis

What now? asks Gavin Moodie (RMIT) in The Conversation. While across-the-board full fee deregulation has now been dumped by the Coalition, fee deregulation of so-called “flagship courses”, first mooted in the Review of Base Funding in 2011 (with the significant qualification that such fees be capped at plus 50% above what they would otherwise be), looks a hot prospect for a re-elected Coalition government (as does a raising of the cap on other courses by some percentage). That is, of course, still moot: an incoming Labor government would be ostensibly committed to additional public investment in higher education. Whichever side wins will have its hands full, And there’s the likely prospect that whatever the colour of the government, it will not have a majority in the Senate.

………………………………………………………………………………………….……

This year’s budget set us back to 2014. In the 2014 budget, the government announced that fees would be deregulated. While this was a toxic political move, it wasn’t toxic enough to be dumped from the 2015 budget, which was another lost year for higher education. While, this year, the government finally ruled out full fee deregulation, it is still contemplating uncapped fees for some courses in its higher education consultation paper. It has also dropped all the worthwhile proposals from 2014, such as extending the demand-driven system to sub-baccalaureate programs..

Salutary lessons from overseas

High caps and deregulated fees

5 May 2016

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

As we begin to address again the issues of university funding, the relative student contribution and student loans, it’s salutary to look to overseas experiences. In the England, the Cameron government didn’t fully deregulate fees, it merely tripled them. There are now real questions as to whether students are getting deal (“value fro money”). Meanwhile in the US, home of the $100,000 degree, the affordability of higher education is said to be a “crisis” and is key issue in the forthcoming presidential election campaign, at least from the Democrat side. And we would do well to heed the advice of Swinburne University vice-chancellor Linda Kristjanson

We should be wary of significant changes to the funding model which would detract from the egalitarian quality of Australian higher education.

The crisis of college affordability may not be solvable by the federal government: It has had much less control over tuition than state policies.

The nap pods that popped up recently at the University of California, Berkeley, may be exacerbating a problem they were designed to fix. Intended to help relieve student stress, the egg-like pods cost approximately $100,000 total. A significant student stressor at Cal is rising tuition, and while the pods add up to about $3 per student, paid for in student health fees, the symbolism is galling to students who will graduate with as much debt as the pods cost.

As the editors of The Daily Cal, the university’s student paper, wrote, students aren’t sleep-deprived because of lack of beds but “because of the overwhelming pressures they face.” More naps do nothing for mounting student fees, and the pods appear to ignore deeper structural reasons for student stress: The average Berkeley student leaves the school more than $17,000 in debt (the national average is $29,000, for public and private colleges).

To subscribe to The Scan….

……. just hit the button below, give us your details and submit. Then when an edition of The Scan is published, you’ll get an email newsletter.

4 May 2016

A lecture on quantum physics

…………………………………………………

During Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in April 2016, a journalist jokingly asked the Prime Minister to explain quantum computing. He called their bluff with a spot-on explanation.

Universities Australia’s (UA) public awareness campaign ‘Keep it Clever‘, highlighting the importance of proper investment in university education and research, has been awarded the Government Relations Campaign of the Year 2015: Services Sector at an award ceremony in Canberra..

………………………………………………………………………………………….……

The highly contested prize, presented at the Government Relations Awards 2015, was awarded in recognition of how Universities Australia’s integrated traditional and new media campaign had shifted perceptions about the value of universality education and research to the nation.

UA chief Belinda Robinson said that when UA launched this campaign last year, they were seeking to “turbo charge” a national conversation about the role of a well-funded university education and research sector in securing Australia’s future.

For too long the immense economic and social contribution of our universities to our prosperity has flown under the national radar. Our campaign is designed to change that, and this national award is a tremendous validation of its impact.

Ms Robinson said that Australia’s workforce will demand more qualified graduates, the economy will rely on the creation of new companies, industries, jobs and opportunities that can only come from a strong university sector.

“Our universities employ over 120,000 people and directly contribute more than $24 billion to GDP. University graduates are worth an extraordinary $198 billion to the economy annually.

As was widely suspected it might, despite intensify lobbying, which one senator depicted as virtual harassment, the government was unable to negotiate the passage of its higher education reform package through the Senate. The bill was defeated 33-31 on the second reading late 2 December, with four of the eight crossbenchers (senators Glenn Lazarus and Dio Wang from the Palmer United Party, former PUP Jacqui Lambie and independent Nick Xenophon) joining Labor and the Greens to vote it down.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….……

The government at the last minute offered a A$400 million concession for higher education in Tasmania to try to win Lambie’s support, but she rejected the overture out of hand. In other late concessions, the government said it would create a structural adjustment fund for universities, focused on those with large numbers of low-SES students. It would provide $100 million over three years for the fund. It would also ensure that domestic student fees must be lower than international students.It had already agreed to keep the indexation of HECS at the consumer price index and to a HECS pause for new parents. Christopher Pyne immediately reintroduced a revised bill into the House of Representatives – incorporating the above amendments proposed by crossbench senators – which would be passed and sent to the Senate early next year. Pyne said that “great reform takes time. The Senate will have the Christmas holiday period to consider this new reform bill.” Will it be enough? Pyne might be well advised to take heed of the words of his colleague Josh Frydenberg on the defeat of the Napthine government in Victoria:

Real questions have to be asked and lessons learned so the mistakes are not repeated. To quote English writer Aldous Huxley: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

One of the real problems Pyne faces in getting this package through, even in substantially revised form, is the barge through tactics he’s adopted. After crossing his heart during the 2013 election campaign that no changes were proposed in higher education funding and fee arrangements, this radical package was simply announced in the 2014 Budget (the advice of the Abbott government’s own commission of audit was to hasten slowly on issues of higher education reform). And whatever Pyne says about the package having “widespread support” within the sector, it really only has the strong expressed support of Universities Australia, speaking on behalf of most of the the vice-chancellors (while the University of Canberra’s Stephen Parker has been a vocal public critic several other vice-chancellors have expressed some quite fundamental misgivings). It certainly lacks public support and stands out as just another broken promise: in an Essential poll released on the day of the vote, 56% said the Senate should not agree to the legislation while only 23% said it should. It’s very much an unloved orphan.

Still, none of this obviates the need for reform. As Hannah Forsyth (Australian Catholic University) argues, the Pyne debacle has exposed other flaws in our higher education system. Pyne should go back to tors on higher education reform and do it properly. All the indications are that he won’t and he’ll keep trying to barge it through. Does this mean it’s ultimately doomed? Watch Nick Xenophone, who always said he wouldn’t vote for it this year but acknowledges the need for change. With some further tweaking on detail over the summer and some sort of deal on military pay and entitlements (say, the proposed backdown on leave entitlements and an inquiry of some kind) to assauge Jacqui Lambie, there’s every chance it will get through, in some form, next year – maybe with something like the reintroduction of caps on student enerolments to ameliorate the costs of compromises .

The danger is that it will be such a dog’s breakfast, lacking consistency and coherence, within a couple of years we’ll be hearing from the government of the day that the higher education sector is “unsustainable” and the whole shebang will start all over again. Note the English experience: the Cameron government’s reforms of 2010 to place higher education funding on a “sustainable footing” will very soon end up costing the exchequer more than they savedand have been described by the UK Higher Education Commission as “unsustainable”.

Too many “known unknowns”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

With the government’s university reform package, which includes funding cuts and fee deregulation, apparently stalled in the Senate, The University of Melbourne has been unable to draw up a budget for next year due to uncertainty.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….……

With the government’s university reform package, which includes funding cuts and fee deregulation, apparently stalled in the Senate, The University of Melbourne has been unable to draw up a budget for next year due to uncertainty.

In an email to staff on 31 October, vice-chancellor GlynDavis said that because of the “known unknowns” concerning higher education funding in coming years, the university was unable to plan with confidence for next year, or beyond that.

There are too many known unknowns. Key financial measures for the sector remain untested before the Senate. Should the government’s plans for deregulation not prevail, as many predict, who knows what policy settings will follow?

He said the university’s Planning and Budget Committee had, in the past, held an annual two-day event to draw up a budget for the following year and make estimates for the next three years.

However this year it was unable to provide any estimates for the next three years and it was also unable to “predict with confidence likely minimum public funding for 2015.

The committee could only provide a “likely” budget for 2015.

We aspire to be autonomous, independent institutions, speaking without fear or favour to the great issues of the day through teaching, research and engagement. Yet our lived reality is the experience of 2014, waiting for the Senate to decide what it will allow governments to fund or universities to charge.

This need to plan amid uncertainty is a reminder that universities do not control their fate. Under present arrangements governments, state and federal, define many choices for universities.

In August, The Scan published 73 posts. Despite the increasing clamour around the government’s proposed higher education reforms, which appear doomed to fail in the Senate in their current form, it was the travails of the Victorian TAFE sector which attracted most reader interest – and by a considerable margin. For the first time ever a post in the Life & stuff category made the top ten (Team Australia – says something!). And we seem to have made a post in July which has attracted not a single view: we’ll repost it next week – it’s timeless advice.

Auditor-general warns on stability of Vic TAFE
5 August 2014 | Against all the evidence, the Victorian government insists that, despite a few local difficulties, Victoria’s TAFE system is in fine fettle. The Victorian minister recently told a conference the apparent troubles besetting TAFE are the invention of a “misinformed media”. But according to the the State’s auditor-general, the troubles are very real: TAFEs are facing a “significant decline” in financial stability due, in part, to State Government funding cuts…..[ READMORE ]….

Net surplus/deficit by TAFE and changes in funding sources from 2012 to 2013.

20 August 2014 | Commonwealth industry minister Ian Macfarlane has announced the appointment of a five-member Vocational Education and Training Advisory Board, charged in particular with ensuring that will provide feedback to the Government as it continues reforms to the sector. The chair of the panel heads Restaurant and Catering Australia, whose RTO was initially refused re-registration last year. Macfarlane said the Australian Government is focussed on” ensuring industry has a stronger voice in the VET system”, so that it “is efficient and effective in delivering the job-ready workers that industry needs”. The sub-text of that is that industry doesn’t have a strong influence in VET and that it is not efficient and effective in delivering job- ready workers (seeParalysis by analysis). …..[ READMORE ]…..

5 August 2014 | Overall the financial sustainability risk assessment for the Victorian TAFE sector deteriorated considerably in 2013, according to the Victorian Auditor-General, as shown by these extracts from the report, Technical and Further Education Institutes: Results of the 2013 Audits. Figure 5A shows that the number of TAFEs with a high financial sustainability risk increased from none in 2012 to six in 2013….[ READMORE ]…..

17 August 2014 | Jamie Miller writes that “the long sorry saga” of Christopher Pyne’s handling of the government’s proposed higher education reforms “serves as an ideal case study of how not to go about building support for a controversial reform program”. It also demonstrates a dispiriting tendency on the part of this government to resort, not so much to “spin“, but to out and out deception (that’s our takeout, not Miller’s)….[READMORE ]….

1 August 2014 | The federal government is expected to ditch one of its most controversial budget measures – the plan to apply real interest rates to student debts – following advice from the architect of the HECS repayment scheme that it is unfair to poor graduates. Modelling by education economist Bruce Chapman and Timothy Higgins has found poor graduates could pay 30% more for a degree than their high-income counterparts if the government indexes student debts at the government bond rate rather than inflation. Women who take time off work to have children would be among the hardest hit. ….[ READ MORE]….

6 August 2014 | The Queensland government has drastically slashed the range of vocational qualifications it supports. Some 170 of the state’s certificate IV, diploma and advanced ­diploma courses no longer attract teaching subsidies, in areas from the arts, retail and business to health, community services and public safety. The government has also removed funding for more than 30 lower-level qualifications, from pest management and conservation earthworks to shearing, firefighting and concreting. The deleted list includes about 20 courses that train people for Queensland’s four economic “pillars” of tourism, agriculture…..[ READMORE ]….

7 August 2014 | GetUp’s quick, clever and topical take on Team Australia : train passengers in Perth rescuing a fellow passenger who had slipped into the crack between the train and the platform on 6 August.

1 August 2014 | NSW TAFEs have been told that they should take advantage of Coalition reforms by reinventing themselves as the “discount airline of higher education” vis-a-vis universities. We see the point but you need to be careful: TAFE ought not be – nor be seen to be – as a cheap, low quality and potentially unsafe alternative. TigerAir gets a bad press and, from our once only experience, thoroughly deserves it. In a report on fees and pricing strategies, consultants SMS Management and Technology told TAFE NSW that federal government proposals — specifically, the deregulation of higher education fees and the extension of teaching grants to non-universities — would create a unique branding opportunity…..[ READ MORE ]….

28 August 2014 | The government introduced its higher education reform legislation into Parliament – the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014. As anticipated, the legislation closely mirrors the announcement on budget night. There is to be fee deregulation with a requirement that 20% of net revenue be set aside for equity scholarships. This 20% is from additional revenue raised after taking into account what was lost in the funding cuts. Students’ loans through the HELP scheme will be indexed at the 10-year bond rate from 2016 but with no loan fee and no cap on the amount students can borrow. The Commonwealth Grant Scheme rates have the 20% cut applied through the new funding tiers. The Research Training Scheme will receive the 10% cut but with the potential for universities to charge a fee to compensate…..[ READ MORE]….

Fairfax Media reported on 26 August on “leaked modelling” presented to a “confidential briefing” conducted by the LH Martin Institute that would see elite universities (the Group of Eight) reap massive benefits from higher education deregulation, while less elite universities, particularly regional universities, would struggle. Not quite so: the briefing was conducted at a public forum and a description of the modelling is posted on the LH Martin website. The point that the authors of the modelling sought to make is that the götterdämmerung scenario of sky rocketing fees and crippling student debt doesn’t necessarily follow from the deregulation package (a point also made by soon to be Go8 director Vicki Thornton in an interesting exposition on the vomit theory of political communication). Of course, the package creates that possibility and, over time, that mayhappen. In this article Andrew Faulkner, Lea Patterson and Leo Goedegebuure, who did the LH Martin work, offer concrete workable options to steep increases in student fees to offset budget cuts and financially sustain universities.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We have recently critiqued the government’s higher education reform package and questioned the logic suggesting steep increases in student fees. While we stand by our view, we agree that we need to offer concrete workable options.

Our alternatives are based on the work we did for a recent workshop on fee deregulation. The objective was to help universities determine the impact of the proposed reforms and what strategies could be explored to not only survive the changes but thrive in a deregulated environment.

Building on our experience of modelling numerous Australian universities, we created three realistic models covering these distinct university types: Group of Eight, metropolitan and regional.

These models are quite detailed, containing a full curriculum and workload profiles at the unit and course level. As with any modelling, these are simplified institutions where changes are smoothly implemented and results are shown without the associated costs of transition. This is the whole purpose of modelling, highlighting the “what if” possibilities and taking them to their logical conclusions. It’s an approach we believe is helpful in today’s complex policy environment.

The models include full university costs and resources for all faculty, research, and service and administration areas. Modelling the impact of the proposed cuts is straightforward. Within the metropolitan university, for example, the 20 per cent cuts result in a loss of $28 million in revenue.

The options below are indicative only but are steps universities could take to offset this loss:

Reclaim lost revenue in each funding cluster by the amount cut. This results in large fee increases for the likes of science and engineering ($4893 a year) and small increases for the likes of accounting and law ($166 a year).

Reclaim lost revenue evenly across all clusters, resulting in a fee rise per cluster of $1478 a year. This is done by simply dividing the $28m in lost revenue by the 18,940 full-time domestic students.

Set all student fees to the same amount after applying the remaining government grants, resulting in tuition fees of $9470 a year.

Set fees based on the cost of teaching plus required surplus of ongoing capital investments, increasing fee levels based on the level of capital investments.

Mixtures of the above.

This clearly shows the impact of the proposed policy changes need not be as dramatic as portrayed in the current discussions.

The models can also be used to examine other options, looking at how universities might distinguish themselves while minimising the cost impact on students. These can range from increasing research effort to making the quality of teaching the primary reputational driver of the university while maintaining a focused research effort. Taking the latter model and applying it to regional universities, it would be realistic to cap student levels at 15 for laboratory sessions and tutorials, at 20 for studio classes and at 50 for seminars.

This strategy requires an additional 52 full-time academics plus support staff, totalling $13m. Combining this with doubling class preparation hours to enable better content results in another 92 full-time academic plus support staff, totalling $23m. The $36m in extra expenses could be charged to students at $2116 a year.

Alternatively, it could be offset with a reduction in the time spent on research by staff. Reducing research time from 32 per cent to 15 per cent in the regional university model results in academic staff requirements decreasing by about the same amount they had just been increased by. This leaves the university where it started, but with the workforce devoting a greater portion of their time to teaching. However, the university is still investing $120m (26 per cent of its total expenditure) into research through its research-only staff and research institutes.

The point is that options exist. There is not one quick fix, as there is no requirement to hike up student fees or make large cost cuts. It is a careful balancing act, taking into consideration the mission of the university as well maintaining a sustainable business model.

There is to be fee deregulation with a requirement that 20% of net revenue be set aside for equity scholarships. This 20% is from additional revenue raised after taking into account what was lost in the funding cuts.

Students’ loans through the HELP scheme will be indexed at the 10-year bond rate from 2016 but with no loan fee and no cap on the amount students can borrow. The Commonwealth Grant Scheme rates have the 20% cut applied through the new funding tiers. The Research Training Scheme will receive the 10% cut but with the potential for universities to charge a fee to compensate.

Grandfathering will work as announced on budget night, with a published fee maximum for current students until the end of 2020 or when they finish study, whichever comes first.

But there were some important new details revealed. Sub-bachelor places, such as associate degrees, will be funded at the same rate as bachelor degrees.

Student fee subsidies will be extended to non-university higher education providers, such as, TAFEs and private colleges at 70% of the rate offered to universities for similar degrees. This is to recognise the role universities have in undertaking research and public engagement, which may not be a part of the activities of other providers.

Eligibility for non universities to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme will be based on registration with the regulator, TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency), and a signed funding agreement with the Commonwealth. This differential in funding makes the rules for which institutions are defined as universities, all the more crucial.

So where to now for the government?

This legislation, while expected to pass the House of Representatives swiftly, will likely not make it through the Senate in its current form. The opposition could send to committee for review, prolonging the negotiation further. It could well be the end of the year (or into 2015) before students know what their choices are.

As has been widely reported, there is strong opposition to much of this package. Very unpopular, aside from the cuts, is the real interest rate on HELP debt. This highly regressive policy change would be a prudent thing for the government to remove if it is committed to the cuts and associated deregulation. While there would be a cost involved in changing the basis of loan indexation, various schemes have been proposed to minimise the imposition on the budget.

There have been calls for money for regional and other providers to support transition to the deregulated system, but the legislation does not contain provision for this.

The quicker parliament agrees on the details of public support for higher education, the better for students and their universities. Uncertainty erodes confidence in the higher education system, and nobody benefits from that.

Universities Australia (UA) has called on the Parliament to support the deregulation of Australian universities with changes to the government’s proposals that it says will assure affordability for students and taxpayers.
.………………………………………………………………………………………………………

UA chief executive, Belinda Robinson, said that the Parliament had a once in a generation opportunity to shape an Australian higher education system that is sustainable, affordable and equitable in serving the best interests of students and the nation.

“With budgets under pressure, governments faced with a myriad of competing priorities for public funding, and successive governments being disinclined to invest at the level that repeated independent reports have shown to be needed, full deregulation of higher education is needed.

“Either the status quo of ongoing inadequate investment, or further cuts without deregulation will condemn Australia’s great university system to inevitable decline, threaten our international reputation and make it increasingly difficult for universities to meet the quality expectations of our students,” said Ms Robinson.

“In transforming lives, Australian universities transform the nation. They make for a civil society, are the lifeblood of our regions and provide the means for securing Australia’s place in the highly competitive knowledge-based global market of the future. Education is Australia’s third largest export.

“The introduction into Parliament of the Federal Government’s higher education legislation is a chance for all parliamentarians to seize the opportunity for making real, lasting changes that are needed in positioning our universities for the challenges of the future.”

In calling for cross-bench Senators to support the sector’s consensus position in favour of deregulation, Ms Robinson said that changes to the package were needed to

Belinda Robinson

assure affordability for both students and taxpayers.

“Under the current student loans scheme, fees are deferred until students graduate and earn over $53,000 per annum and interest is calculated at CPI. Universities Australia urges the Senate to maintain the CPI interest rate so no one with the ability to attend university is saddled with a large debt.

“Similarly we call on the Senate to moderate the size of the proposed 20 per cent cut in the Government contribution to tuition fees so as to reduce upward price pressure on fees.

“It is also critical, as with any substantial industry change brought about by changes to policy settings, that a package of support be provided to universities, particularly those that serve disadvantaged and regional communities.”

Ms Robinson said the decision to provide Federal Government funding for non-university higher education providers at 70 per cent of the subsidy for universities struck the right balance in recognising the different functions performed by non-university providers and universities.

Ms Robinson called on the Parliament to remove the ongoing uncertainty for students, universities and the broader community, by moving swiftly to approve the reforms with changes proposed by Universities Australia.